"Guy Alcala" wrote

[ good info deleted]


What you describe, is pretty much the procedures used for a Cessna or
Piper, but the speeds are reduced :-)

Nowadays with electronic flight computers it's a relatively trivial exercise.

NTSB monthly reports still show pilots killing themselves and their families
over the lack of computing density altitude.

I don't know if the USAF/USN/USMC has a way to dowload the formulas
into pilot flight planning computers or not...

Probably not. Most organizations have a Mission Planning Team (usually
people in the Wing training shops) who prepare data for alert/recall crews
while they sleep. You just hand them a TOLD card (Take-Off and Landing
Data) and they mount the jet and blast-off. After doing enough TOLD cards,
any person would develop a recognition of what's right and what's wrong.
If your TOLD card always says Vref = 134 knots, and then one day
you're handed a card that says 120 knots for the same weight, then the old
noggin should wiggle a bit... (Engineer! make me another card, and turn
your light on).